How to Protect Your Business Data and Reputation through Online Security Tools

If you want your online business to run smoothly and avoid reputation and financial loss, it is important to keep your data and customer information hidden and secure. You can lose more than uptime if your site gets hacked or information held on your servers gets locked or compromised. In case you haven’t paid enough attention to cybersecurity before, it might be time to take the issue seriously. Below you will find a few things you can do to protect your business data and reputation.

Privacy Certificates

Always use a trusted and safe payment processor, and make sure that they work well with your website. If there is an order and payment button on your site, it is important that you get an SSL certificate to encrypt all personal and payment information. At the same time, you should also pay attention to cookies and have a clear policy, to make sure that your customers know how you are using the information they submit through the pages. If you are doing business with customers from the European Union, you will need to display a GDPR privacy and cookie policy notice.

Encryption Services

Apart from the payment details, you can also encrypt your entire website, so you can protect it from being stolen or copied. If you have original images, you might want to add a watermark to prevent unauthorized use. There are several low cost website encryption services that can keep your site secure from internal and outside treats. You must make sure that you are not making data freely available for cybercriminals and can prevent attacks.

Host Server Software

While most of us assume that host companies automatically take care of the security of their servers and backup our files, this is not always the case. Not all hosts are created equal, and you will have to check the FAQ pages or contact customer services to make sure that your information is backed up regularly and safe. While you can do your own backups and there are several apps and plugins to do this automatically, you will need to make sure that the settings allow you to restore the pages without the need of hiring a professional.

Regular Security Updates

It is also crucial that your host (or you) install the latest security updates. Hackers are always one step ahead, so you must have an up to date software at all times. You might want to consult with an internet security expert to get professional advice, or complete a dns leak test to make sure that your DNS address is not revealed and compromised. Sometimes you might need to look through a couple of professional reviews and articles to find out the truth about your DNS server provider.

Password Strength

Whenever you set up a back office access to your site, you need to choose a password that is not easy to guess. It is recommended that you change the passwords every 6-12 weeks, and avoid writing them down or storing them on your computer. Even if you are just saving an image with the password written down, hackers can easily figure out which site it belongs to, so they can get access to your hosting package and change whatever they want, even erase the content completely.

Backups

Every company should backup their website and computer files on a daily basis. The good news is that there are several cloud service providers that will give you enough space to store all your files, images, and databases. You can even set automatic software, document, and website backups up, so you can easily restore the files when you need to.

Access Control

It is also crucial that you only give people access to certain functions on your website they need to use. When hiring a web designer remotely, you might be naive, and simply give them the password and the login details. Never do this, as you might be dealing with someone who would like to cause you harm. Instead, set up a new account with restricted access to the files and content. This way, you can protect yourself from fraud and avoid losing your data after hiring an incompetent designer.

If you would like to make sure that your website is running safely and smoothly, you will have to start thinking about security. Focus on your own devices, update the software regularly, and check out the safety certificates of your host company and DNS server provider, so you can avoid financial and reputation loss.